Breakdown of O diretor bane tal tipografia, mas nós nunca banimos isso.
isso
that
nós
we
mas
but
o diretor
the director
nunca
never
tal
such
a tipografia
the typography
banir
to ban
Questions & Answers about O diretor bane tal tipografia, mas nós nunca banimos isso.
The lesson is about defective verbs, but we see bane and banimos here. Which forms of banir are actually missing?
Banir is a defective verb, meaning it lacks certain conjugations. Specifically, it has no first-person singular in the present tense (there is no eu bano). Because the present subjunctive is built from that missing first-person form, the entire present subjunctive is also missing! However, forms where the ending naturally starts with e or i (like ele bane and nós banimos) are perfectly normal to use.
Since banir is defective, how would I say "I ban that" if I needed to?
Because the form eu bano does not traditionally exist in European Portuguese, you cannot use banir for the first-person present tense. You must use a synonym instead. A native speaker would naturally switch to eu proíbo (from proibir, meaning to forbid) to express the exact same idea.
Why is there no article before tal tipografia?
When tal is used immediately before a noun to mean "such" or "this kind of", it acts as a determiner on its own and does not take an article. If you were to add the definite article and say a tal tipografia, it would change the meaning to "that aforementioned typography" or "that specific typography we were just talking about".
We translate isso as "that", but could we use aquilo here instead?
You could, but isso is the most natural choice here. We use isso to refer to an idea that was just introduced into the conversation, such as the first clause of this sentence. Aquilo tends to be used for things that are conceptually or physically distant from both speakers, whereas isso acts as a direct reference back to the immediate context.
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